The Art of Making Money - Jason Kersten [112]
That same morning, by pure coincidence, Natalie turned herself in. She put on her nicest skirt and blouse, took extra time with her makeup, and drove to the federal building in Texarkana. She heard about the attacks over her car radio on the way, and didn’t consider that it might be a bad day to turn herself in. Her world was already in collapse, and the fact that the rest of the country felt that way, too, didn’t seem like a reason to prolong the inevitable. When she showed up for her reckoning with the Department of Justice, she found an office full of awestricken agents standing in front of TVs.
“We need to do this fast,” a processing officer told her. “We’ve kind of got our hands full right now.”
They booked and released her on bail in less than an hour.
By early October, Art was back in Alaska, awaiting formal charges in the Anchorage Jail. Of all the detention facilities he’d become familiar with, he found it the absolute worst. “It’s already bad enough that most Alaskans are fucking crazy because they don’t have any sunlight in the winter,” he says, “so imagine what they were like in a cold, nasty jail with the worst possible food. I’ve been in a lot of jails and jails can get crazy, but in most places there’s some sort of respectability in the inmates. They try to keep themselves clean, even though they can be mean. These people were nasty. They didn’t clean themselves, it smelled, drugs were rampant in there. People were fucked up on all kinds of shit, mostly OxyContin. I hated it. I didn’t talk to anyone and stayed completely to myself.”
The first phone call Art made from the jail was to his father. He obtained permission for a one-hour contact visit, and later that week Senior drove down for what would be their only visit together. It took place in a small room, in the presence of cameras and guards. Senior came alone. He entered the room and smiled wanly at his son
“This was my fault, Arty,” he said as he hugged his son. “I should have listened to you.”
Art immediately felt relieved. But he wasn’t convinced that was the truth.
“Pops, I was the one who fucked up,” he said. “I brought it into your life. I shouldn’t have. We wouldn’t be here if I had just left it behind.”
“Look, it ain’t your fault,” his old man insisted. “I knew better. I should have ended it.”
“I’m sorry anyway.”
Senior tried to change the subject by asking Art about how he was holding up, the jail conditions, whether he was eating enough. Art told him that everything was great. Silence crept in. Eventually they got around to the subject of the cases. Art finally heard from his father’s mouth about how the Service had raided the house. Since they were being monitored, they avoided getting too specific about what had been found.
“So what does your lawyer say about your outlook?” Art asked.
Senior hesitated a moment—Art thought he was trying to summon up an encouraging response to the question—but he couldn’t.
“I’m going down,” he said. “I don’t mind doing the time, I’m still young enough to have a life when I get out. But what really bothers me are the dogs. I don’t know what will happen to them if we both go away. We won’t be able take care of them. There’s too many to find homes for all of them.”
Art felt sick to his stomach. He had never had anything against the dogs themselves, just his father’s devotion to them at the expense of his own kids. He began to cry.
“I never should have come up here,” he said.
“That’s bullshit,” Senior countered. They went back and forth blaming themselves again, then more silence.
“What about Anice?” Art asked.
“Not happy, but she has a